A Country-Wide Burden

Leslie Basham: Just a few weeks ago, Nancy Leigh DeMoss stood on a stage before three thousand women in the Dominican Republic.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Bienvenidas a la primera Conferencia Internacional de Aviva Nuestros Corazones. [Welcome to the premier International Conference of Revive Our Hearts.] 

Leslie: The reason Nancy traveled to the Dominican Republic wasn’t to impress the nationals with her mastery of the Spanish language.

Nancy: In fact, when we landed in the Dominican Republic the other day, and there was a sign that said, “Do you have anything to declare?” (It was a sign in customs.) I said, “Yes, I have come to declare Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

Translator, Laura: [Providing Spanish-language translation of Nancy’s words.]

Now, what are we asking God to do this weekend? We’re asking Him to revive our hearts!

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Thursday, March 22.

A few weeks ago, Nancy Leigh DeMoss was in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, speaking at a two-day conference. Women from the across the Spanish-speaking world had convened at the sold-out event, and women from forty-one countries watched the live stream.

This is not because Revive Our Hearts has engaged in a huge Spanish-language strategy. This is something God is doing. He is drawing women in Latin America to Himself. We’re thankful Revive Our Hearts can be a part of it.

Nancy’s here to tell you some of what God is doing.

Nancy: Recently, I was asked to share with some friends, partners of the ministry, an update on Revive Our Hearts and some of what God has been doing over the past several months, some of the different outreaches that are developing in different ways. It was really so encouraging to me to just remember and overview . . . take a little survey . . . of what God is doing, and some of the different ways that lives are being so deeply impacted with the message of revival and biblical womanhood.

In that update I shared with our listeners that one of the things I’m most excited about right now is what God is doing to advance the Spanish-language ministry of Revive Our Hearts. Because some of that is so fresh and unfolding as we talk, I thought it would be encouraging to you, perhaps, to get a glimpse of what God is doing . . . for me to take some time, along with some of our Spanish-speaking partners, to share about what God is doing in that whole area.

I suppose, to go back to the beginning of the story, I’d go back to True Woman ‘08, the first True Woman Conference, held in Chicago. As women were signing up for that conference from all over the United States, we began to hear about a group of women who were wanting to come to that event from the Dominican Republic.

That’s a long way away from Chicago, and it wasn’t just one or two or three women, the numbers began to grow until finally there were over one hundred women from the Dominican Republic who came to that True Woman Conference.

I don’t have to tell you that you can’t drive from the Dominican Republic to Chicago. You can’t take a bus; you have to take, not one, but a few airplanes, a few different flights, and it’s a long trip and an expensive trip.

It was amazing to hear stories later about how God provided financially for women who wanted to be a part of that event. The first I remember meeting some of these women personally was the day before the conference.

I had arrived early, and I was meeting with different ones of the speakers. I was in the lobby of the host hotel, and some of these women from the Dominican Republic had just arrived. They had been traveling for something like twenty-four hours, and had had little sleep, and they were so excited to be there.

It wasn’t just me who felt that. All of our team was very aware that these women were eager to seek the Lord. They were eager to serve. They joined us for a pre-conference totebag-stuffing party to help us get the resources in some six thousand totebags for the women.

They just jumped in. Some of them did not speak English, so we had Spanish translation available on little headphones throughout the course of the conference. But those women, English or no English, were so thrilled and such a vital part of what God did that weekend. It’s hard to describe how eager they were to receive this message.

As we began to explore further, we realized that there was a woman who, along with her husband, had been the driving force of getting this group together. I don’t think, at the time, she had ever thought it would be this many women. She just wanted to come to the conference and bring some women with her. Her name is Laura, and her husband’s name is Fausto.

He originally was a dentist in Florida, and they came to know the Lord about ten years ago through an amazing set of circumstances, and ended up back in the Dominican Republic, where Laura is from originally. He is serving on the staff of a local church there that just loves the Lord and has a real heart for revival and for biblical manhood and womanhood.

So Laura and Fausto had found Revive Our Hearts, and they were excited about introducing it to others in their church and sister churches. So that conference in 2008 was our first direct extended contact with them.

One thing led to another as those women went back to the Dominican Republic. God had powerfully moved in some of their hearts, and long story short, they began using many of our resources, including Seeking Him, that twelve-week study on personal revival, as did some of the men in their churches. Over the next several months God began to send a spirit of revival to many of those women, to their husbands, and to the churches that they are a part of in the Dominican Republic.

Fausto: In June '09 we were already halfway through Seeking Him with the couples . . .

Leslie: This is Fausto Gonzalez de Chavez. He watched God use Revive Our Hearts to deeply affect women in his church. Then, he says, that spilled over and began to deeply affect the men as well.

Fausto: So, now we have the men’s retreat, and they started confessing all sorts of sins. “I have another woman . . . ; I have two children outside my marriage—my wife doesn’t know about it . . .” And when we got back to the city Sunday, they were talking to their wives . . . “Honey, I have to tell you something . . . ”

And the women who had been to True Woman some months prior were ready. It was hard to hear, but they were ready, they knew God was answering their prayers. 

Leslie: One resource God used to greatly affect families in Fausto’s church was Seeking Him, the workbook co-written by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Betsy: My name is Betsy Flores, and I am from the Dominican Republic. My husband and I started Seeking Him, and it was amazing. I think that was like the best moment in years because we could see each other as we really were.

We started confessing a lot of things that we didn’t know about each other. It was a new start for us, being honest with ourselves, and having a clean conscience. A revival started to happen in my house, and I thank God for resources like this and ministries like this.

Leslie: As Seeking Him and other Revive Our Hearts resources began affecting women like Betsy, Nancy began hearing from the leaders in a growing True Woman movement in Santo Domingo.

Nancy: And we kept getting these reports of so many more things that were happening, and they were asking us, “Can we translate this resource into Spanish? Can we use this? Can we reprint this? How can we get more of these resources?”

They brought another hundred-plus women to our True Woman Conferences in 2010.

Sarah Jerez: All the women from 2008 wanted to come again.

Leslie: This is Sarah Jerez, recorded at the True Woman Conference in 2010

Sarah: But most of them couldn’t, so most of the women who came this year are new women, women who hadn’t come in '08.

Nancy: Then came the time when Fausto and Laura came to us and said, “We want a Spanish-language version of Revive Our Hearts. Would you let us do that? We’ve been so touched by this message, so touched by this ministry. We want to share it with others.”

Laura: We said, "We want to have the program in Spanish."

Leslie: This is Laura Gonzalez de Chavez.

Laura: We just want your authorization, we want to start translating, just want it for us, for here locally.

Sarah: If Revive Our Hearts were to be translated into Spanish, that would be amazing.

Leslie: Again, this is Sarah Jerez in 2010.

Sarah: I’m bilingual, so I can listen to it in English, but in the Dominican Republic, there are so many women who are able to read some of Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ books that are translated, or just any kind of material that is already translated, and they just love it, and they want more.

You wish you could say, “Listen to the program,” but they don’t understand. I know it would be a huge blessing, even at our church, in those small groups that we have. A lot of times they’re recommending, “Listen to this program,” when they talk about a subject, and a lot of them say, “I don’t understand.”

It’s hard for us. This material is so rich and such a blessing, and we just wish that they could hear it. If the programs are translated . . .

Nancy: After extended dialogue and prayer, seeking the Lord together, we gave them the release to do that, and they started the program just over a year ago, doing the translation and getting the program edited and produced there in the Dominican Republic through partnership with a Christian radio station in Santo Domingo.

Now, of course, it’s not my voice on that program. There’s a lady named Patricia who is the voice of Revive Our Hearts in Spanish. She voices the translated programs, and she is a woman who has been deeply impacted through the message and the ministry of Revive Our Hearts.

The program in Spanish is called Aviva Nuestros Corazones. Revive Our Hearts.

So for the last year or so, two days a week, that message has been going out in the Dominican Republic and other Latin America countries through various radio outlets. Well, they’ve kept in touch with us and have been telling us, "We need more of this. We’re excited about what God is doing. He’s changing lives; He’s healing marriages; people are  coming to know Christ in a new way, and we’re very excited about this."

And they kept persisting in appealing to us to bring a conference to the Dominican Republic. They had brought now hundreds of women to our various True Woman conferences. They said, “Could you bring one of your conferences to the Dominican Republic?”

Over the course of months, as we sought the Lord, we agreed to bring a Revive Our Hearts conference to the Dominican Republic. The plans were set, and the conference actually took place, several weeks ago now, in Santo Domingo, our first international Revive Our Hearts conference.

I don’t speak Spanish, and a number of the women there don’t speak English, so I gave the messages Friday night and all day Saturday in English, line by line, and Patricia, who is the voice of the Spanish-language program, would translate as I would speak. 

I tell you, I think if I had dropped dead during the conference, she could have finished those messages for me. They are messages we use in the U.S. Revive Our Hearts conferences. She had gotten some audio copies of those messages and some transcripts of past conferences, and by the time I got to the Dominican Republic, Patricia had immersed herself in those messages, she had internalized them in her own heart, and she was really, really ready to share those messages with the women.

As the word spread, women began signing up for that conference. In fact, the conference sold out two weeks in advance at three thousand women, and by the time we got there, it was true that Friday night, that every seat in that room was full—there was no more room..

The building itself where the conference was held is a brand-new building. The major host church there has a facility that only seats six hundred, and they were in the process of a new building program when we decided to have the conference.

Their plans were not to have the building finished in time for that conference, but they got to work, they got the building done enough to host the conference.

In fact, the opening night, Friday night, about a half hour before the conference was about to begin, I arrived and walked up on the platform, and there were men on their hands and knees staining the platform.

There were little puddles of stain in different places. They were still finishing up that facility so those women could come and worship the Lord and seek the Lord. And oh what an incredible joy it was for me to see the hunger of the women who began to file into that auditorium, coming to seek the Lord for revival.

There was just such a spirit of expectation and anticipation . . . women wanting, eager, to meet with the Lord.

I wish that I could say we sense that every time we have an event here in the United States. There are always hungry-hearted people, thank the Lord, but I can’t remember a place where I’ve been where there was such a widespread longing and eagerness, in a corporate sense, for God to come and meet with us.

From the very opening moments, throughout the conference . . . In fact, we kind of teased about it being on Latin time, because they were not nearly as bound to the clock as we often tend to be here in the States, and they didn’t care if services went long. They didn’t care if they went late.

It was hard to get them to leave. They wanted to be with the Lord there. In the times of singing, worship, praising the Lord, times of prayer, times of sharing with one another, times of the Word being proclaimed, times of responding to the Lord, in-between the sessions as women would press in to share what God was doing in their lives, what a joy it was to see these eager, hungry-hearted women seeking the Lord together.

There were so many highlights of the weekend, it’s hard to know where to begin. One of the things that was a little different about this conference was that many women had used this as an evangelistic outreach, and they had invited friends and neighbors and fellow workers and employees and family members, moms, sisters, daughters who did not know the Lord. I began to get word about this in the few days leading up to the conference. One of the leaders said, “We think there may as many as a third of the women coming to this conference who don’t know Christ.”

I began to really pray about that because the focus of our conferences typically is targeted toward women who do have a personal relationship with Christ, or think they do.

So I began to pray about this, saying, “Lord, would You give me the gift of an evangelist for this weekend? Would You help me to make the gospel clear? Would you make it compelling to these women? Would You give them understanding? Would Your Spirit open their ears and their hearts and their eyes to see Christ, to realize that religion cannot save them, but only through clinging to Christ, turning to Christ in faith and repentance, can they find eternal life and a right relationship with You."

And what a sweet thing it was to see, throughout the course of that weekend, God answer those prayers. I heard many, many stories about women who came to faith in Christ that weekend.

I heard about one woman, who is a dentist, who came first to the True Woman Conference in 2008 and came to know the Lord at that conference, and then brought with her to this event, in her home country, seven women—three of whom, including her sister and two close friends, gave their hearts to Christ in the Revive Our Hearts conference in Santo Domingo recently.

She came to me with one of those women, introduced her to me after the conference. And to hear that woman in her forties give her testimony about how she had finally turned her life over to Christ . . . And another woman who brought her mother, and the very last session of the conference that mother gave her heart to Christ.

The mother’s background is that she was a Buddhist, and she had been wrestling with giving her heart to Christ, and wrestling with her background and with her religion, not ready to surrender to Christ. But by her testimony, she did at the end of that conference. And all through the weekend we were hearing about women who were turning to Christ in faith. What a joy that was!

Another fun thing at the weekend was that, like we do at the True Woman conferences, they had women in turquoise aprons who were identified as prayer partners. They didn’t have room to have a prayer room. Only one large room had been finished for the conference. So we couldn’t send the women anywhere for an invitation or a prayer time, but we had these women in these turquoise aprons. I call them the “apron ladies.”

Nancy (conference): So if God is speaking to you and your heart is beating fast, make sure you find one of these ladies.

Translator, Laura: [Providing Spanish-language translation of Nancy’s words.]

Nancy (conference): Let’s thank these ladies for praying with us this weekend.

Nancy: And I told the women from the very outset, “Some of you have come here without a relationship to Christ, and God is going to be speaking to you, drawing your heart. And if you want someone to pray with you about that or any other need in your life during the course of this conference, please go find one of these apron ladies. Let them know you need someone to pray with you, and they will do that.

It was so sweet to hear stories about how women would turn to one of the apron ladies or go find one of the apron ladies and reach out to her and say, “Would you pray with me?”

So a lot of ministry was going on throughout that auditorium even beyond what was happening on the platform as women were one-on-one ministering to those with spiritual needs throughout the course of the weekend.

One of the highlights for me of the entire weekend conference was over the lunch break on Saturday when I had a chance to meet with women who came to the conference from other Latin American countries.

Most of them had not come in large groups. They had come by one or two or three, but they had come from Chile, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, some women from Puerto Rico, but from various Spanish speaking places.

The women from Mexico, two of them, had had to travel two full days to get to the conference and then two full days to go back. They were particularly eager to be there because they had been airing the Spanish language program of Revive Our Hearts in Chihuahua, Mexico, in a very needy part of that country. Their church has been paying to air the program. They are so eager to go back to Mexico and take the True Woman movement with them. So they were there to soak up what they could, as were other women from, I think, seven different Latin countries

What a sweet time that was, sitting in a circle there in that room behind the platform, and hearing those women, one after another, share about their burden for their country and what they see God doing and what they want to see God do, and why they feel like this ministry is so important.

In fact, throughout the weekend, I was hearing from, not only these women, but others who were providing leadership there in the Dominican Republic. They were telling me there really is not a teaching ministry that is biblically solid, that is by women and for women, in all of Latin America.

Now, maybe there is. Latin America is a big place, and maybe there are some things they’re just not aware of. But as far as they know, there is no biblical, solid teaching ministry for women throughout Latin America. And that’s why these women from all these various countries are so hungry to use these resources and to multiply the teaching and reproduce it in the hearts and lives of women throughout Latin America.

Leslie: That’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss, reflecting on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic, a place where God is truly reviving hearts. If you look around and see a lot of lifeless, joyless churches, maybe you wonder, “Is God really working today?” I hope today’s report on how God is drawing women to Himself has been an encouragement.

Please pray for Revive Our Hearts. God is doing something in the Spanish-speaking world that we did not predict, and we want to move forward in His will. Perhaps you share a passion for women in Latin America. Would you visit ReviveOurHearts.com and leave a comment on the Revive Our Hearts listener blog? Click on today’s program, scroll to the end of the transcript and share your heart. If you’re praying for Revive Our Hearts, that would be a great place to let us know. Your comment would be a huge encouragement.

Now, maybe you’re not a Spanish speaker but you’re intrigued by the conference that just took place. Maybe you’re thinking, “I’d like to hear those messages from Nancy.” Well, you can. We’d like to send you a Revive Our Hearts conference on CD when you make a donation of any amount to this ministry.

The set of CDs includes classic messages from Nancy that have deeply affected women across the United States for years. You’ll be challenged to come before God in true humility and look to Him to meet all your needs.

Ask for the Revive Our Hearts conference on CD when you donate any amount by phone. Just call Revive Our Hearts at 1-800-569-5959, or donate online at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Today, Nancy explained how she ended up in the Dominican Republic a few weeks ago. Tomorrow she’ll tell you some of the things God did at that conference.  Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.